Producer George Massenburg to give Heyser Memorial Lecture at AES 135

The 135th Audio Engineering Society Convention (Thursday 17 until Sunday 20 October) will again feature the Richard C. Heyser Memorial Lecture, an event held at AES Conventions since 1999. This year, the lecture (Thursday at 7.15pm) will be presented by producer and entrepreneur George Massenburg.

Massenburg has experience in a multitude of pursuits within the professional audio domain, with time spent as a record producer (Linda Ronstadt, Emmylou Harris, Dolly Parton, Lyle Lovett, Toto, Little Feat), recording engineer (Earth, Wind & Fire), studio designer and builder and entrepreneurial inventor: his GML brand of audio processors is globally ubiquitous.

In his Heyser Lecture, entitled ‘4-44 & Me – Stagnation to Transformation: The Real Future of Music’, Massenburg will address a number of critical areas, including the responsibility of pro-audio educators to provide students with a truly comprehensive educational experience that addresses, as he puts it, “the head, the heart and the guts” of producing recorded music. Massenburg will also touch on recent trends towards improved sonic quality, such as legislation and technology that takes on loudness normalisation.

Massenburg is currently an Associate Professor of Sound Recording at the Schulich School of Music at McGill University in Montreal, Quebec, Canada; and a Visiting Lecturer at both the Berklee College Of Music (at campuses in Boston and Valencia, Spain) and the University of Memphis in Memphis, Tennessee.

The Richard C. Heyser Memorial Lecture series was established in May 1999 by the AES Technical Council, the Board of Governors and the Richard Heyser Scholarship Fund to honour the extensive contribution to the Society by Heyser, widely known for his ability to communicate new and complex technical ideas with great clarity and patience.

The AES Convention will be held once again at the Jacob Javits Center in the Manhattan ‘Midtown West’ area once known as ‘Hell’s Kitchen’.www.aes.org/events/135/

The Audio Engineering Society’s first international conference in Hungary commences later this week, though the associated expo has diminished to the smallest number of exhibitors ever, writes Dave Robinson.

UK: THX's chief scientist, Laurie Fincham, will present a paper on Controllable Line Arrays to the AES UK Section in London next week. As part of his presentation, Fincham - widely regarded as a pioneer of computer modelling in loudspeaker design - will discuss theoretical and practical design criteria for two-dimensional line arrays with controllable directivity.

The presentation to the legendary producer/arranger was made during AES 128 - the first European convention to be staged in London for 23 years. Music technology innovator Masataka Goto was among the other star guests at the well-attended event.